"Vacation" spring 2016

I took another brief "vacation", one of those things I seem to do these days when I don't rest very much.  Actually managed to get quite a bit of down-time, but that was mainly due to bad weather.  Below is what I woke up to on the first day of vacay.  It didn't put me in the mood to go out and clear dead and fallen trees.

It rained like crazy most of the first week I was off, and then my daughter was out of school for Spring Break the second week, so I didn't get a whole lot accomplished outdoors.  I only managed to get a couple of burns in.

Most of this is burn pile is forest floor junk and low-hanging tree limbs that could allow a brush fire to jump to the crowns of trees - what they call "ladder fuel".

It's also important to burn dead trees - both to remove the available fuel and to deny bark beetles a place to reproduce.  If bark beetles are allowed to reproduce, they can infest and kill nearby healthy trees.  They are a huge menace to the forest in years after mild winters.

Below:  Everything you need to clean up (besides a strong back and lots of stamina):  A high-quality chainsaw, big jug of chain oil, gas/oil fuel with a chain tightening tool in the spout, and a big mug of coffee :)

Below, a large snag that I took down and bucked so that I could move the pieces to the burn pile.

A bunch of dead wood that is now gone.

More dead wood.  This was rotting and full of bugs.  Good riddance!

Slowly but surely I am getting the property safe from wildland fires.  Below is a pretty good video explaining how and why this needs to be done.

Since the weather was poor and I had family time to consider, I did a few small indoor projects, like installing this air hose reel in the shop.

 It needed a little more support than just the OSB wall board.  I added quick-couplers to it so I can plug my air compressor into it, then reel out the hose as needed.

One of the small indoor jobs was to un-crate and assemble the generator I bought in December of last year.  It has electric start, so the wife can get it running with the twist of a key.

For fun, I have been saving beer labels of all the various beers I drank over the past few years.  I will paste them down and then put a clear-coat over the top of them for a colorful and interesting poster.

Done correctly, it looks pretty cool, although of course I am not doing a table-top.

After a couple of days clearing the woods, my back hurt and a lot of my muscles and joints were sore.  I decided that it was time to finally get working on fitness again, so I started using my ghetto gym in the basement.  That just made everything hurt worse... :)